Tips & Tricks

September 18, 2009

Virtual TimeClock Tips & Tricks - September 2009

We’re happy to announce that the Virtual TimeClock ‘09 release of last February is fully compatible with the retail release of Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard. Read the full announcement at Virtual TimeClock Snow Leopard Compatibility. We plan to announce full compatibility of our time clock software with Microsoft Windows 7 when it’s released in October. Remember, all time and attendance software upgrades are free as long as you remain enrolled in our software Maintenance & Support program.

I know we have lots of new users out there and many of you are back from summer vacations and ready to get down to business again, so this is a great time to review the importance of closing payroll periods. For those of you who’ve been using Virtual TimeClock for some time, you’re going to love how much simpler we’ve made it to reopen a closed payroll period.

Closing Payroll Periods Overview In order to use our time tracking software effectively, it’s essential to understand the function of closing payroll periods within the program. In Virtual TimeClock, closing a payroll period performs two tasks:

Virtual TimeClock totals and saves the hours, overtime, and gross wages for all workers using the current payroll settings.

Virtual TimeClock advances the current payroll period to the next payroll period using your current payroll cycle settings.

Why Closing Payroll Periods Is Important When viewing or printing timecards, the time clock will always use the stored totals from a closed period rather than recalculating the totals again. This is important since wages, overtime rules, and time deductions change over time. By closing payroll periods, timecard reports for a closed period retrieve the historical totals rather than calculating hours, wages, overtime, and time deductions based on the current settings for each worker.

Here’s a quick Tip: Once all entries for a payroll period have been entered, reviewed, and corrected as necessary the payroll period should be closed. From the Tools menu, choose Close Payroll Period.

Reopening a Closed Payroll Period Remember that closing a period causes all totals for the period to be written to the database. Therefore, a payroll period that is closed before the end of an actual payroll period will lead to incomplete timecard reports. Though new entries made in a closed period will be properly recorded, they will not be totaled when timecards are viewed and printed. Never fear, a closed payroll period can be easily reopened so that all entries within the period can be properly totaled.

Here’s a quick Tip: It’s now even easier to reopen a closed period. From the Tools menu, choose Payroll Period. In the Current Period section, simply enter the start and end dates of the payroll period you want to reopen and click the Save button.

When Payroll Periods Are Not Closed The most likely thing that you’ll notice when you’ve failed to close a payroll period is that the current period defaults to an old date range when printing timecard reports. That’s because the time clock is using the current period dates set in your payroll cycle settings.

Here’s a quick Tip: If you’ve never closed a payroll period, it’s easy to get caught up. From the Tools menu, choose Payroll Period. In the Current Period section, simply enter the start and end dates of the current payroll period and click the Save button. Virtual TimeClock will automatically close all previous payroll periods and bring your time clock software current.

When Payroll Periods Are Closed Early Besides noticing that the current period defaults to the wrong date when printing timecard reports, new entries made in a closed period will not be totaled when timecards are viewed and printed. You’ll likely see zeros instead of the total hours worked for those timecard entries.

Here’s a quick Tip: Just reopen the closed period and then rerun your timecard reports to total those new timecard entries.